Tuesday, March 22, 2011

5 Very Good Reasons to Buy the New Book by The Oatmeal

#1 Buying this book is much better than being stuck in traffic going to a book signing in Santa Monica.

#2 If you put this book on your coffee table, that goofy aunt of yours, the one who has dolphins tattooed around her ankle, will be mortally offended and finally stop sending you those "It's National Syrup Day!!! Sending a big sticky kiss to everyone who's sweet!!! And make sure you send one back to me!!!" emails.

#3 All the cool people with all the cool hats own this book. (And their little dogs, too.)

#4 When people bug you to read "War and Peace" or some tripe about a tattooed girl who isn't even American, you can wave Dolphin at them and say,"Gee, that sounds absolutely fascinating, but currently, I'm captivated with all the wondrous things I'm learning about Nature's beautiful creatures."

Seriously... it's a great book, put together by a passionate, wildly talented and almost disgustingly young man, who I had the privilege of briefly meeting at his Santa Monica book signing at Barnes & Noble. (Very briefly, because there were over 200 other fans there, who all wanted to become The Oatmeal's new best friend.) Kudos to Shane and the rest of the B & N event staff who kept things flowing nicely and the crowd from getting too restless.

With the help of a laptop that suffered momentary stage fright, Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal's real name) explained how The Oatmeal came to be (the name itself is derived from a gaming name he used,) after he decided he was more interested in comedic art than coding. (Though he did use his coding talents to play some interesting practical jokes on PETA.)

The book itself is high quality - sturdy cover and pages, good color printing on most of the pages, though there are a very few pages in black and white. There is quite a bit of factual information sandwiched between the dinosaur on crack rampages and babies vs. rabies comics; how to use a semi-colon, spelling tips, and exotic trivia about beer, coffee, tapeworms, and cats.

How cats manage to puke on demand, especially when company is visiting, or when one is trying to blog, was not covered, however. Perhaps the next book.

The key to his success, though, is clearly The Oatmeal's dedication and hard work on the art, which is all done done digitally, via mouse (something he doesn't recommend,) and amazing programming and coding skills. Marketing? He shrugged. Besides this book tour, if you create something people really like, the marketing takes care of itself, said he.

I'm guessing B & N and the other locations from the just-completed book tour just might have some extra signed copies on hand, if you check with them. If not, you can just go here for an unsigned copy.

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The Amazon Affiliate Disclaimer Thing

Sometimes when I link to books, CD's, or DVD's on this blog, it goes to Amazon using my affiliate links. This means, should you click though and buy stuff that way, I get a small (very small) commission, which helps to offset my own book addiction.

Sometimes I link to B & N, or GoodReads - it all depends on my mood. If you choose to help keep me neck deep in reading material, I adore you; if you prefer not to (especially if you're supporting a local independent bookstore), I love you dearly anyway. *kisses*